I Take it Back

by Pejman Yousefzadeh on September 20, 2011

I tried in the past to absolve John Mearsheimer of anti-Semitism. It is, at the very least, much harder to do so now. Indeed, it may well be impossible. Either, John Mearsheimer–via his endorsement of the vile and repulsive “ideas” of the loathsome Gilad Atzmon–has outed himself as an anti-Semite, or he is completely ignorant of what Atzmon professes, and Mearsheimer has outed himself as a fool. I can’t see a third option.

All of this, of course, brings to mind Andrew Sullivan’s recent nonsense assuring us that the only reason Mearsheimer is disliked is “because of his resistance to the Greater Israel Lobby.” I would ask if, in the light of Mearsheimer’s endorsement of Atzmon, whether Sullivan would consider the possibility that Mearsheimer is disliked because he professes ideas that are truly disgusting and offensive. But that would presuppose that Sullivan is intellectually honest enough to admit that he might have been wrong about Mearsheimer, so why bother?